Question coming from a F1 newbie as of this year (thanks DTS)
Interesting race yesterday. Clever loophole exploitation on RB to put Perez back out to erase the time penalty. Supposedly F1 powers-that-be want to plug that hole so teams can’t do it again?
I guess the bigger question is should the loophole be fixed?
So how would such a rule be written? Say “if a car is out of a race under green for more than five minutes, the team must retire the car (which is defined as not permitted to race again in that race)”. But that doesn’t seem fair to a team in a race where less than ten cars are remaining (does this ever happen?) and it takes a while to get the car fixed.
Anyway, I am curious to see what becomes of this.
Did they fix something on Checo’s car before sending him out again?
My understanding is that you need a valid reason to retire a car; you can’t just park it if you’re out of the points in order to preserve your engine, for example
So, if they decided to park him, there must have been a safety reason. Putting him back out without addressing that would mean they either retired him without a reason, or put him in danger by going back out again
I thought this would be the reason he would have to stay out after he returned to the race. If you’re saying that the car is now safe to drive, aren’t you not allowed to retire it 2 laps later without a reason? I was hoping that rule is what would have punished RB for this sneaky move.